Apples and Pairs
by Ellie 5192
Summary: "A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know." Episode tag for Point of View, set throughout season 3. S/J implied friendship/angst/URST, but no more than the show. One-shot.


_Apples and Pairs_

Episode tag for Point of View. Sam/Jack, set throughout season 3. I don't own them. If I did, well, things would have gone much differently than they did.

This quote reminded me of the photo of Sam and Jack being married.

Enjoy, as always.

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_"A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know." Diane Arbus_

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At first, her voice echoes in his head, just like in the movies. A constant ringing, getting softer and softer and yet never truly fading. The rock that is his skull bounces the sound around and around and around until it seems it has reached the bottom of a bottomless pit and then, as though a wind has arisen from within the darkness, it just bounces right back up to his ear. A never-ending cycle of words and phrases and a voice that makes no sense and yet seems to say everything he ever wanted to hear.

Jack doesn't sleep that first night.

The next day at work was awkward. Not as bad as he'd thought it would be, but not exactly calm and carefree either.

Jack chalks it up to lack of sleep, cracks a joke and soon the world's back on kilter, all order restored, normalcy continues.

It's been two weeks since she went back to her own reality. Two weeks since he'd come to terms with the idea that he'd have two of her. The one he had started to feel something a little more than platonic feelings for, and the one who had loved him in another life. Two weeks since the plan, and the pain, and the kiss. Oh God, the kiss, there, in virtually the same room as everyone else, and _her-_ she had seen. Been standing right there.

He feels a little guilty, and not just for the look on _her_ face.

He likes to remember what her lips felt like. Her but not her.

He likes that he has a memory of kissing her without the involvement of a locker room and a particularly small tank top.

He likes that she had kissed him back.

She's so different from the other Samantha. She walks with a firm, even gait. Years and years of military training ingrained, her back ram-rod straight, her hair cropped short under her cap, her gun slung under her arm as though she was born to carry it. She's been living the military life long before the academy days, and it shows. He doesn't doubt that there is a woman under all those layers, but she does such a good job at hiding behind bravado and spunk and he often has to remind himself of it. Her femininity.

Yes Sir. No Sir. Do you really think that's a good idea… Sir?

All gusto and confidence and spark.

The more he looks for them the more the differences become obvious, and he kicks himself for even considering the idea that this Sam would kiss the same way as the other.

He feels guilty again.

He likes his version better, kiss or no.

The first time he dreams of her picture is three weeks after she left. It comes to life, and he hears her voice, laughing. No, not laughing, giggling. Giggling on his knee, begging the photographer to take just one more because, God damn it Jack, would you just take _one _serious photo, it's our wedding for crying out loud.

She doesn't say it the way he says it- the Sam in the dream. Her 'c' is a little sharper, and her 't' is a little more pronounced than his, though not by much. She makes it sound a little less insubordinate.

And when he wakes he realises the problem. He realises why he was in so much trouble.

The woman sitting on his knee was not the woman from the photograph.

He's watching a hockey game a few days later when he suddenly wonders if she liked pumpkin in the other reality. Carter doesn't like roast pumpkin, only soft cooked, or soup. Could you tell such a thing from a photograph? He supposes not.

He's fixing lunch that same day when it occurs to him that her hair had been so long, flung over her shoulder in soft curls. Real, too, unless he was mistaken. When, then, had Carter cut hers? High school? The academy? Maybe she stuck it out and only chopped it off when she went into combat, content to put up with the daily ritual of securing it tighter than a ballerina's bun. Around the time of the Gulf, then. And then later the SGC.

That night he dreams of her again, sitting on his knee. Giggling.

Only that doesn't sound right, because Carter isn't allowed to giggle. He wouldn't let a member of his team be caught doing something so… feminine. But she knows how. He has heard it a few times, mostly on team nights and usually at her place, where rules and regulations give way to friendly banter and popcorn and beer.

She knows how to giggle, and he knows what it sounds like.

Was the other him chuckling or straight out laughing in that photo?

What would he do in the same situation?

Where had they met?

He never thought to ask her, though that was probably for the best given her grief. The SGC, obviously, the civilian scientist coming in and pissing him off with her brains and pizzazz and the fact that he didn't really hate her because, it's just so damn hard to hate someone that gorgeous. When? The first mission?

Surely not.

When he came back then. Or maybe when he got back from mission numero uno.

Maybe she was riding the elevator with him when he was still struggling to accept that he wasn't dead, and she took pity or perhaps took a fancy because of some underlying nurturing instinct, and they got drinks. Drinks might have turned into something more. And they might have seen each other at work every now and then until she was transferred for good.

Or maybe her entrance went something like Carter's, sans the uniform and the formalities and the wise-racks to the guys. General Hammond, I have those readings you wanted Sir, and… oh, excuse me, Colonel, I didn't realize you were in the middle of something… I'll just come back later then. No need, Doctor, the Colonel and I were just finishing up.

Doctor? he'd think. How could _she _be a doctor, and not of the medical kind, and why should her legs in that skirt have anything to do with her ability to gain a doctorate? And she was carrying paperwork he could never hope to understand.

And she was mesmerizing.

And he would have seen her around. Maybe visiting Janet while he was nursing a concussion, and she would have smiled and asked how he was, and said _It's good to talk to you_, and went on her way. And he would have sought her out for drinks anyway, because it had not escaped him that she was gorgeous, even if she was a scientist.

And she didn't- _doesn't_- wear glasses, so it's easy to forget that she _is _a scientist, until he perhaps mentioned the 'Gate, and her eyes might have lit up, and damn it, his heart did not just jump up his throat at the sight.

And Kowalski would snigger at him as he recalled a fleeting thought- that maybe he wasn't as emotionless as he'd have everyone believe. And she and Kowalski would become friends, because he'd seek her out in the commissary for lunch, just to make sure his best friend wasn't going to go dating some whack job.

And they were married a year and four months after they met, because when you know, you know.

He likes to wonder about the other them. It means he doesn't have to face the fact that he's fantasising about being married to his Second, her or not her. They aren't them. Or so he keeps telling himself.

She looks the same as the other Samantha when she cries.

She's back at work the next day, all bright eyed and bushy tailed, and she gives Teal'c a hug, telling him she is so glad he was okay and not lying on the bottom of some lake. Teal'c hugs her back and bows his head, and Jack understands her tears the night before.

Never in front of them, at least not intentionally, but certainly behind her closed door.

He'd heard the tones of Kelly and Reynolds in the background, singing about love songs of all things.

He had ignored the way she wiped her eyes as she went to the fridge for his beer.

He left earlier than he normally would, because Sara had told him once that, sometimes, crying was more cathartic than any workout or distraction. Sometimes you just have to let yourself feel, let the tears come and comfort yourself with whatever you can.

Jack gets the impression Carter doesn't do the 'cathartic-tears' routine nearly as much as she should.

He also gets the feeling she was only half way through her emotional backlog when he had showed up.

They weren't them.

He doesn't know if any straight-and-narrow scientist, tough or not, could have pulled off the stuff Carter pulled off with those fake SGC kids and their training camp. Field training gave you a cool head under pressure. Being on SG-1 made you almost immune to the barking orders of a CO who wanted you to pull a miracle out of your butt.

Carter is good at miracles, both in the lab and in the field.

Military training made you think on your feet. Sink or swim. Do or die.

Maybe she had been right. Maybe the fact she was in the Air Force- forced to make split second decisions without the luxury of testing and retesting and testing again- did make a difference.

He wonders, months later, if Carter would ever grow her hair out in their reality, and would it be so straight, or wavier than that?

The image of her taking five in the morning to braid it into a regulation-fit bun doesn't sit well with him. Doesn't feel right, though he's not fool enough to _not_ notice how comfortable she is being 'the girl' when she goes shopping with Janet and Cassie. Still- Carter with long hair just doesn't fit in his mind, and he wonders if Samantha has corrupted the possibility in some way. He likes watching Carter run her fingers through the short strands after sleeping off-world, a quick squirt of water enough to make it sit flat and behave.

He likes that, even when she tries to hide it under a cap, it still pokes out, softening her a little. He remembers crawling back into their tent after his watch to find it glowing as it framed her face, falling at funny angles. He was glad for the two bright moons that night. Even more glad that she'd already been on watch and he didn't have to wake her.

He likes the short.

He isn't ready to think about being married to Carter. Not when they've just been half broken, and they've had their darkest memories dredged to the surface- and not just _their_ memories, but the snake's too. Samantha's visit is the last thing on their minds, and anyway, her Dad is now safe and sound away from Hell and their going on a well-earned vacation together.

He likes that he's her friend.

He likes that they trust each other at least that much, and that he can be there for her, even if it's at a greater distance than is afforded to Daniel and even Teal'c.

He likes that he might one day look back and be thankful he had her on his side. That he got to be among her most trusted.

He likes that there has now been proof that maybe she would be by his side too.

By the time he kisses Laira, the other Samantha has fallen to the back of his mind, barely surfacing, except when he's set to go home and Carter gets that look on her face.

_Goodbye again _he thinks.

He doesn't want to say goodbye to her, ever, period.

He'll make it up to her, even though he owes her nothing, and she'll forgive him because some things don't change.

She cracks a joke and he laughs at it, because these moments of team relaxation and slight inebriation are few and far between, and he likes it when she shows her humour because she's actually quite funny. And Dorothy and Scarecrow skip down the yellow-brick road just as Daniel starts snoring.

Order restored. World back on kilter. Normalcy as they know it.

They were never the same.


End file.
